Going through my collection of fountain pens, I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover this bold blue Lamy Safari from a couple of years back.

The Lamy cap and barrel is made of high-quality ABS plastic with a chrome clip. It has a cartridge/converter fill system. The barrel has a cutout – that’s to see how much ink is left, which serves the same purpose of the Ink-Vue windows of 1930s Waterman pens, but in a simpler fashion.

I prefer converters to cartridges. They’re eco-friendly because they’re reusable, although carts can be refilled with a syringe. Here, I’ve dipped the Lamy’s nib into a bottle of Private Reserve.

A converter is also great for priming a clean pen because it draws ink up through the nib. Here the converter is half-full. (You can see I’m an optimist.)

Here’s a writing sample with this pen’s lovely 1.1 italic nib. The ink color is actually Tropical Blue, not Turquoise. Sorry for the typo error. The Lamy does not have spell-check.

A closer look at the nib will show the end of the nib that lays the ink down in a wider line than usual, perfect for rendering italics, calligraphy, and interesting drawings. It’s going to get a lot more use from now on.